4. And I somehow managed to knock out this project start to finish, plus document it to share with you all within the three hour time block I had while Mark watched Junie. A new record perhaps?

So. Much. To celebrate.

And I’m here to share the inside scoop on how I created this little gem so you can create your own state map hoop art for your home or as a baby gift for expecting parents or even as a wedding gift. It’s the perfect way to celebrate one’s home city, place of birth, or first home.

It’s where the heart is, after all. {Yuk yuk.}

Although I’ll be sharing tips, tricks, and pointers for how to pull this off with a Silhouette Curio machine, those of you with a Silhouette Cameo or Portrait can knock this out, too. And in a pinch, never underestimate the power of a good old-fashioned pair of scissors.

Bottom line: you can do this. I can hear your rendition of “Hoop, There It Is,” now…and it is beautiful. {Sniffle.}

I made sure my software was up to date, and then set up my design space in DESIGN PAGE SETTINGS. I set my paper size to 8.5″ x 6″ and my cutting mat to the Curio (cut), size 8.5″ x 6″.

NOTE: The Curio’s workspace is typically 8.5″ x 6″, but they do have a kit for a larger base that will enable you to play with a workspace of 8.5″ x 12″. You can check those out HERE.

Once upon a Silhouette project, I had created some “Home Grown” onesies for my friends who were expecting. So, I pulled up that cut file as inspiration for creating my Florida map. I tweaked the heart shape so it would stand out even more when cut in felt and decided to create a backdrop of white hearts to help fill the empty space (here’s my inspiration image). Then, I sized it all down to match the 5″ x 9″ embroidery hoop I had in my stash.

TIP: Outline and fill your shapes with color to gain a more accurate picture of your final design.

Free Cut File

I updated my original “Home Grown” cut file to include the artwork I used for this design, so it now includes the hearts, states of Ohio, New Jersey, and Florida, along with the “Home Grown” text. I’m offering all three designs fo’ FREE download to my lovely newsletter subscribers. Just sign up using the form below or by clicking HERE, and you’ll receive access to the .studio3 Silhouette cut file. {Fine print: These designs are for personal use and not to be used for commercial purposes.}

clean-cut fabric interfacing: thicker iron-on material that allows you to adhere your fabric cut-out onto cards and scrapbook pages or hand-stitch it onto other materials; it’s perfect for felt wall art like this. Or a layered fabric flower like this.

Cut your fabric and interfacing slightly larger than your design.

Place the rough side of the interfacing on the back of the fabric, and iron it using the temperature setting recommended for that fabric to start, turning up the heat as needed (I ended up on a wool setting rather than polyester). Silhouette recommends applying the iron for 2 seconds, but I found mine needed much more time…more like 1 minute for each piece of felt.

Remove the liner from the interfacing (it should peel off without any interfacing residue remaining on it).

Step 3. Adjust your cut settings & prep your machine to cut.

Now, it’s time to visit the CUT SETTINGS window so we can set our cut lines and blade settings.

Make sure your Curio machine is turned on and connected to your laptop because that opens up new options in your cutting settings window (like the Craft Foam option or the deep cut blade selection). Based on which color of felt you want to start off with, you can turn your cut lines on and off of your various shapes using the “cut style settings.” I decided to start with my white hearts to ensure my machine could cut the tiniest of the shapes.

Next comes the option to choose your “tool for selected shape.” One of the awesome new features of the Curio machine is that it comes with a dual-carriage system, meaning you can have two different tools like a blade popped in there ready to work alongside another tool like your ratchet blade. For instance:

Notice that the first carrier is denoted by a red circle and the second by a blue circle. The Curio machine will always do the action of the red circle first, followed by the blue circle. And since this project only requires the use of one tool, the blade, we can focus solely on the settings in red under “Tool 1.”

Then, when it came to selecting a material, I chose Craft Foam as a starting off point since I figured it was similar thickness to my felt.

TIP: Note that once you determine your custom settings, you can save them to your software using the + sign under “material type,” which is exactly what I did as you’ll see in the image below. My “User Defined” material is now Felt (Poly).

Keep scrolling down and select your blade: Deep Cut Blade or Ratchet Blade if you are using your Fabric Blade. This opened up a dialog box that gave me instructions for how to set up the platform on my machine.

“Platform? What’s that all about?”

Allow me to explain: the Curio comes with a cutting mat (size #1), an embossing mat (size #1), and three platforms (size #2, size #2, size #1). They’re stackable, and the order and number of platforms you’ll use are determined by your project. That’s another one of the fun features of the Curio–you can work with even thicker materials than you can with the Cameo.

So, once I selected “Craft Foam” as my material, my machine suggested a platform level of 5, so I knew I needed to stack my base in this order from bottom to top: #2 base + #2 base + #1 cutting mat with felt on top, interfacing side on the mat.

TIP: There’s a protective teal overlay atop the cutting mat you’ll need to remove, careful not to remove the actual sticky mat along with it. It’s easy to do!

‘NOTHER TIP: Brand new mats are so sticky, they are almost too sticky and can sometimes to destroy your media on the first go-around. So, I usually de-sticky a new mat by pressing it on my jeans a few times. For this project, I also didn’t press down my felt too firmly onto the mat because I didn’t want the interfacing to get stuck.

Then, I unclipped the four plastic snaps on my base, lay down my crafty sandwich, and snapped them back in. Bam!

Once your base is assembled, it’s time to load it into the machine. If you look on the side of your machine, the load/unload light should be blinking, indicating it’s safe to load.

How do you know how far to push the base into the Curio? There’s a guide notch on each side of the base that needs to be past the front of the machine (see the diagram under the cover of your Curio for the full run-down). But in layman’s terms, you’ll just push it until it pops out the back.

Then, when I hit the load button, the Curio sucked the base into the machine and set it at the proper position. Easy peasy. The green light is now solid. (And when I want to unload it, I’ll hit that same button and wait for the blink to manually unload my base.)

Pop your blade into the first carriage position of the machine, locking it into place by turning the carrier knob to the right.

I usually use the “test cut” feature to fine-tune my cut settings before completing my big cuts, but I decided one small heart would be the equivalent of a test cut! So, I just left the cut lines on one heart at a time as I experimented to find my sweet spot.

I had assumed I needed my new Deep Cut Blade for this project (which can cut from level 1 to level 20!). And I used a tip I picked up from Kelly Wayment’s post on the Silhouette blog to find a good starting point. I simply held up my blade alongside my material to see which setting might allow it to cut through the material, but not quite through the mat.

I started at 12 but found my blade was cutting too deeply into my mat, so I just lowered blade and decreased thickness until I landed at the following:

blade of 10

speed of 1

thickness of 20

single cut (no double cut needed)

Do you know what that means? Cameo and Portrait users can tackle felt on their machines, too! And folk can use their regular Ratchet Blade or Fabric Blade since they go up to 10 in blade depth. Just know that everyone’s settings will be slightly different based on the sharpness of your blade, thickness of your material, etc. So, tweak as you go.

FUN FACT: The Fabric Blade is the same exact blade as the black-capped Ratchet Blade. But just like you have special scissors dedicated to fabric versus other materials to help them maintain their sharpness, the pretty blue cap will help you distinguish it from your other blades.

TIP: For more pointers on cutting felt with your Cameo or Portrait machine, check out these posts by the Queen of Felt Crafts, my friend Jessica from Cutesy Crafts: Part 1 & Part 2.

Step 5. Curio magic time!

Head back to your computer screen and select, “Send to Curio,” to set your machine in motion. And now is the fun part where you sit back and watch your machine do what it was made to do. It’s always a bit of a thrill.

After cutting out my white hearts, with great success, I then tag-teamed my blue and pink cuts all on one mat for the sake of efficiency.

I held my breath as the blade worked on Florida’s bumpy coastline, and guess what? Clean cut! No problems whatsoever. I feel like this opens up a whole new world of cutting possibility!

Step 6. Iron your cut-out felt pieces onto their felt backdrop.

And I kid you not, I probably spent an hour arranging and rearranging those little white hearts until I was content with where they lay. #perfectionistproblems

Once I was, however, I carefully pressed them down with a hot iron, and within a matter of seconds, everything was well-secured.

Silhouette recommends stitching down fabric for security, but since this is going to be hanging up on our nursery wall and not being tossed around or washed, I decided to forego that step. Also, “ain’t nobody got time for that!”

I trimmed the edges of my gray felt on the back and used hot glue to secure it to the inside of the embroidery hoop. Here’s where my Hot Glue Gun Helper kit came in mighty handy. No burned fingertips here! {That kit is one of my Top 30 Gifts for Crafters & Creatives. If you want just the finger caps, you can nab those HERE.}

The Finished Piece

And I give to you the finished piece of wall art. “Hoop, here it is!”

Ain’t it felt-tastic?

And here she hangs in her new home on the gallery wall. I’m going to save the grand reveal of the entire wall for an upcoming post…but here’s a good portion of her for your viewing pleasure!

I love how this piece celebrates not only Juniper’s first home city, but fits in seamlessly with the “little adventurer” theme we have sprinkled throughout the nursery. There’s nothing that inspires wanderlust more than a map! Amiright?

This craft project is Junie-approved!

Since this completes Juniper’s nursery gallery wall, I have newfound inspiration to finally get her room photographed so I can share it with you all. Transforming that space has been one of my absolute favorite D.I.Y. projects of all time, and now that it’s officially finished, what am I waiting for?

So, stay tuned, my friends. I’ll be back with a nursery tour soon. Until then, have a blast making felt crafts, m’kay? You’ve got this.

What Else Can the Curio Do?

I hope you’ve enjoyed this mega-detailed tutorial on cutting felt with the Silhouette Curio. Perhaps it will inspire some of you to bust your machine out of that box and fire it up, so it can work its felt-cutting magic.

Curious about what the Curio can do that its counter-part, the Cameo cannot?

Metal and foil stippling

Metal etching

Dual carriage multitasking (such as debossing and cutting in one pass)

Embossing

Score & Emboss

Print & Emboss

Deep-cut capabilities with the special Deep-Cut Blade (leather, foils, foams, and more)

Using thicker materials as project surfaces (such as sketching onto wood up to 5mm in thickness)

Here’s my very first Curio project where I experimented with debossing to create my own Custom Watercolor Artwork for Juniper’s Nursery:

And the Curio can do all the same things as the Cameo in terms of cutting; however, unless you get the larger base kit, remember you’ll be working with a smaller workspace of 8.5″ x 6″. And the Cameo still reigns superior when it comes to making large banners (up to 10 feet!).

If you’re itchin’ to explore the gazillion projects I’ve done with my Cameo, you can check out my Mother-Lode of Beginner Silhouette Tutorials HERE.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you!

*Full Disclosure: This post also contains affiliate links, meaning that if you make a purchase using my link or discount code, I receive a small commission. Please rest assured that as always, I only recommend products that I use and love like cray-cray.

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I’m a New York gal putting down new roots in Orlando, Florida with my hubby and our sailboat. My heart skips a beat for all things creative, be it crafting, upcycling, sewing, journaling…especially blogging. If I can make you smile or ignite in you a spark of inspiration, then my job is done here. Won’t you grab a cup of chai, a comfy blanket, and stay a while? {read more...}

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